The characters in this story belong to George Lucas.

Luke awoke with a start. He could hear his roommate, Wedge Antilles, still snoring beneath his bunk. Luke had slept through few nights since their arrival on Hoth. The cold was so penetrating it kept him from sleeping deeply and he awoke at the slightest noises. The blankets he was under managed to keep his body heat walled in around him, but he knew if the lights had been on, he would have been able to see his breath. The temperature of the Hoth base was supposed to be controlled at just below freezing, but sometimes the extreme coldness during the night overwhelmed the control systems.

He lay still for a moment, trying to regain the sleepiness he had felt earlier. He had spent the day before working with every other grounded pilot to dig trenches outside of Echo Base for use as defense in a ground assault. The work was as tiring as moving sand, and Luke had done enough of that in his life to know that it wasn't a job to be done only once. A windstorm would likely fill in all they had done today, and they'd just have to go back out and redo their work.

He sighed and resigned himself to his fate: another sleepless night. Luke mentally and physically braced himself for what he was about to do, then slung his blankets to the side and leaped off the bunk onto the icy floor. It had only taken one morning for him to figure out that it was necessary to sleep in boots in Echo Base. He hustled to pull on his fur-lined coat, gloves, and hat, then tiptoed out the door into the deserted hallway.

He wandered out to the docking bays to when his X-Wing was landed. The fighters had been packed into the bay as close as could be managed, since docking space was limited on Hoth and any equipment left outside was subject to temperatures so cold that Luke shuddered to imagine what they would feel like.

It seemed like everyone else had gotten used to the cold. Some people even walked around without gloves or hats. Luke couldn't imagine getting used to it. He'd not been warm one single moment since he arrived on Hoth. At least some part of him was cold at all times. It was usually either his hands, his nose, or his feet.

His X-Wing looked as cold as Luke felt. The engines were fired up every few days to make sure they were still running smoothly since Rieekan had placed restrictions on air traffic other than supply and transport ships, but the rest of time it sat untouched in the coldness.

He climbed the ladder to the cockpit and lowered himself into the seat. He could feel the coldness in the seat, but he knew after it was sealed his body heat should warm up the enclosed space more than the room he shared with Wedge. As the cockpit hissed closed and sealed tight, Luke wrapped his arms around his torso and shifted to rest his head against the seat back. He closed his eyes and prayed for just enough warmth to allow him to fall asleep.